Strategic Plan 2023-30
 

This new vision and strategy will take us to our 40th anniversary and beyond. It builds on our rich heritage as a Higher Education Provider, aligning our values of arts and culture, people and place. We continue to value and promote discovery, embrace social change and bask in the glow of opportunity that our great City of Leeds provides.

Beyond our obligation, we see it as our duty to humanity and who we are as people to nurture a primary need to have culture in our lives. Our purpose is to educate, innovate and transform. We walk hand in hand with our academic and artistic communities, as skilled creatives, and as a responsible organisation, to imagine and deliver a quality experience for all.

Our strategic plan has been developed by and with our staff. It has our students and other stakeholders in mind. It focuses on four guiding principles, each with four enablers, that set out how we will deliver positive change locally, regionally and globally as a leading provider of arts practice.

Through our strategic plan 2023-2030, we consider: who we are; how we will grow our foundation; our visibility and our future. Each year we will publish practical commitments to the strategy and share stories of success and achievement.

1: Shaping Who we are

To utilise the very best of who we are as an organisation to the best of what we can and are able to do. To make a difference to society through our work (the art form, education, engagement, research and professional development) and through our people. To be globally-facing and achieve our ambition to be world-leading.

Equity

Embed and promote diversity through our staff and student base. To instil the identity of NSCD as an attractive place to study, create art and work for all.

Engage, Inspire, Educate

Develop opportunities which enable students and young people to participate and engage with quality dance activities with stakeholders, collaborators, partners and organisations.

Development of Talent

Enable everyone to achieve the best of their potential and for the organisation to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Accessibility

Enable access to our provision, opportunities and benefits. Where opportunities are equal, transparent and fair.

2: Building Our Foundation

To create a resilient, sustainable and ambitious growth of our physical environment and activities which offers a financially secure future and great value for money for our stakeholders.

Financially Sustainable

Create an environment of financial stability by enhancing our core business through effective cost management systems and value for money.

Environmentally Sustainable

Remain resourceful, resilient and environmentally sustainable in the context of all our work, our people and place

Centre of Cultural Knowledge

Support others through building a centre of cultural knowledge, with improved and up-to-date resources, which are used by both the school and the communities we serve.

People and Place

Invest time and energy in stakeholder and relationship management to be a key driver which contributes to the city's ambition and cultural strategic vision.

3: Building Our Visibility and Profile

To utilise the strength of our brand and our work to tell our story, share our narratives and to create new and inspiring legacies.

Brand Identity

To re-visit our brand to represent us authentically; as accessible, communicative, encouraging and influential.

Building Relationships

We place importance on making long-lasting connections and building relationships effectively with students, partners, organisations, and people who work with us.

Visibility

Prioritise our website as an important aspect of our brand, communication, and messaging.

Making a Difference

Let our audiences take home from our work key messages that reflect our societies and cultures.

4: Shaping Our Future

To realise our ambition to connect with others, secure our drive to offer our own degrees and encourage others to advocate for the work we do and who we are as a provider for the region, sector and global market.

Valuing Relationships

Connect to others through valued partnerships, opportunities, share and create new knowledge. Support grassroots development, community ideals, learning and stakeholder engagement.

Ambition

Realise our ambition to drive our culture of research forward, to make a difference to the artform and to seek new knowledge in a global context.

Advancing Our Offer

Facilitate the development of course provision, artistic excellence, youth talent and investment in partnership growth.

Taking Action

Work with advocates towards a more progressive and inclusive society and to inspire people to take action.

Our Commitments

2023/24
  1. Undertake an accessibility audit of the building using a variation of critical friends of varying ages and abilities.
  2. Begin the process and submit our application for Full degree Awarding Powers to the OfS
  3. Increase the number of collaborative projects which make the best use of inhouse programming and external artist and partnerships opportunity.
  4. Research models for the NSCD Advocate Scheme
  5. Draw out and share Knowledge exchange potential of events in and around the curriculum
  6. Review a develop the whole school curriculum to include new movement forms and subject disciplines, ensuring that courses continue to offer the provision at the very top of the sector, building on our conservatoire values.
  7. Further utilise the functionality of Quercus across all courses to ensure cohesive and efficient system of application to courses.
  8. Maintain and develop an equal, inclusive and transparent Admissions Process with evaluation strategies embedded into the process
  9. Embed new provision to support bodywork within the school, establishing new partnerships with practitioners.
  10. Evaluate student Financial Assistance to ensure it is reaching target students.
  11. Develop key led student societies and encourage students from protected characteristics to be represented on all boards and committees including Board of Governors
  12. Implement a quality assurance and compliance cycle across School Boards and Committees
  13. Develop a Student Union Council to represent the student body and the broad range of student voices to inform progress, activism and nurture the NSCD student community.
  14. Develop a framework for analysing costs and profitability for individual activities undertaken by the school.
  15. Review Charitable status for the organisation or strands of organisation to access funding opportunities
  16. Positively reflect and celebrate the diversity of our student and staff base through our news stories and social media coverage.
  17. Create a menu of activities across L&P / CAT / NSCD+ provision, opening out offer to schools / community settings and youth groups etc.
  18. Increase the quantity of intensive programmes for young people to engage with.
  19. Generate further connections with the sector for profiling youth voice and commitment to the art form.
  20. Design and incubate an access programme of activities with 6+ partner UK (England & Wales) youth dance organisations from a pilot delivered in 2022/23
  21. Draw together a plan to engage with more Schools Partnerships as a result of coming out of pandemic, with more potential to connect.
  22. Utilise CAT Outreach to offer targeted provision in specific targeted schools, offering short/ long interventions.
  23. Develop further opportunities to platform and implement CAT Outreach Teachers CPD
2024/25
  1. Support cohesion across departments to support diversity and inclusion through the commissioning of local, regional and international artists for student works across courses/departments at NSCD
  2. Develop and give presence to an EDI action plan and roadmap to ensure an intentional approach to identifying and achieving institution-wide equity, diversity, and inclusion priorities and goals
  3. Enhance cross-departmental initiatives to support outreach activity
  4. Develop the Access page on the website – gives opportunity to make own informed decision
  5. Review filming of the building with accessibility in mind supporting confidence for those to enter the building
  6. Regional legacy voice: Leeds Bid partnership growth, Leeds 2023 legacy – our input into this.
  7. Ensure that our public and outward facing events promote positive messages and brand identity
  8. Look closely at representation, Sharing and being visible on different forums and mode of communications.
  9. Build on legacies of previous work such as the Colour festival to support stakeholder engagement with the school
  10. Offer a space for forums, conference and symposiums as an annual event to highlight research and information exchange potential
  11. Review and rejuvenation of reading and resource lists to prioritise inclusion, celebrate diversity and increase access to supportive course materials, in support of high-quality learning experiences
  12. Development of portfolio of programmes to meet sector and business needs
  13. Upskilling advocates working nationally & internationally
  14. Increase the number of curriculum and sector collaborative projects which make the best use of in-house and external choreographer opportunity
  15. Report on difference in outcomes/progression for different target groups
  16. Maintain quality assurance and compliance best practice and ensure this mapped across Boards and Committees
  17. Undertake regular reporting at activity level within the school to ensure value for money
  18. Evaluate the current corporate structure against the needs of the business going forward
  19. Review consistency of our branding across all of NSCD – with full consultancy of staff and wider audiences
  20. Develop regular newsletter and introduce regular features – alumni roundups, alumni spotlights, teacher features etc.
  21. Create a strategic approach to Newsletters and mailing lists.
  22. Embed student voice through communications – testimonials, quotes, interviews
  23. To shape and incubate an access programme of activities with partner schools and groups from a pilot delivered in 2022/23 to include 6+ partnerships with youth dance providers across the UK (England & Wales)
  24. Increase the number of curriculum and sector collaborative projects which make the best use of in-house and external choreographer opportunity
  25. Report on difference in outcomes/progression for different target groups